In the nursing profession, leadership and management are essential skills. Leadership is the action of leading people, while management is directing the organization to achieve the desired goals (Fulford & Coleman, 2021). Whether a person is a leader or a manager depends mostly on his/her character. Several personality assessment tools exist for testing one’s character. Leaders and managers in a healthcare facility should adopt practices that promote their staff’s general welfare and prioritize offering quality cares services to clients to add meaningful value to society.
Leadership and Management Theory
When administering nursing care for patients, the healthcare team should collaborate to provide quality patient services. The team should work efficiently while serving patients. In addition, an assessment of the patient’s health condition should be done regularly, and any adverse health-related developments should be attended to promptly. Coordinating the activities that facilitate the provision of high-quality nursing services is an exercise that requires close monitoring. The leadership and management theory guides how individuals entrusted with leading teams and managing organizations can optimize their performance.
Expectation Theory
As a leader and an advocate for change, expectation theory is appropriate to enhance the delivery of quality nursing care services. The theory postulates that motivated employees exert more effort when they believe that those efforts will lead to a favorable appraisal (Fulford & Coleman, 2021). A positive appraisal leads to tangible rewards, including a pay rise and promotions that satisfy personal goals.
The nursing profession focuses on saving lives. It requires a dedicated team prioritizing the patient’s interests over any other commitment. However, the healthcare team may fall short of this expectation, especially when required to work extra hours in a busy shift. The management should develop a compensation structure that aligns with the job they hire the nursing staff to execute. That helps mitigate the risk of working with a demoralized nursing team beyond regular working hours.
Whether I am a Leader or a Manager
The personality test I did on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator showed that I am a leader with advocate traits. One of the reasons why I decided to pursue a nursing course was to serve people with ultimate care. When I was young, I heard nursing mothers narrate negative experiences while at the hospital and wondered why people pursue an important course like nursing to become a disgrace to patients. My belief that I could make a difference has been pivotal in making the team I work with have a positive attitude toward their patients.
Before going to a theater, I always like examining what could go wrong and taking precautionary measures beyond what would ordinarily be appropriate for that surgery. Though some surgery led to a fatality, I always believed that the team had put all the necessary measures to guarantee success, only that the adverse outcomes occurred beyond the team’s control.
How to Strengthen My Personality as a Leader
The test results further revealed that I am an introvert. That can reduce my influence on people around me. Introverts focus mostly on their inner thoughts and ideas rather than what is happening outside. A leader should lead people who are in the external environment. Therefore, to become the leader I aspire to, I should participate in activities that increase my presence in the organization where I work. These activities include attending nursing forums and seeking opportunities to talk, like asking questions. Moreover, I should improve my public communication skills by listening to informative speeches and taking a public relation course. Participation in community activities would also help me to become a people-oriented leader.
Change Theory
In nursing, changes are essential to offer high-quality services to patients. As a leader, I would adopt Havelock’s model to pioneer changes in my organization. The model has six phases which are: determination of required changes, evaluation if those changes are impactful, collection of information relevant to the change, determination of the pathway to change, encourage staff to embrace the new changes, and monitoring the compliance with the changes to realize the desired outcomes (Fulford & Coleman, 2021). Adopting Hovelock’s model helps to ensure minimal resistance from the staff, which is a major setback to addressing changes in an organization.
Personality Traits that Promote Change
I will use openness to promote change in the facility. Employees know me as a person who speaks my mind. That reputation is helpful because it makes them relate positively with me. When spearheading changes, I will inform them of the long-term goals that the change will bring to the facility and the contribution of the short-term changes toward accomplishing the intended goals.
Personality not to Use
Since I will embrace openness, I will avoid approaching change with a closed mindset. I will encourage my team members to support the initiative and give room for positive criticism. This approach will make it easier to get feedback from colleagues and their contributions toward effectively implementing the changes.
Communication Style
The personality test disclosed that I have a direct communication style. While I appreciate that the recipient of the message may not be willing to hear what I have to say because it may hurt, I choose my tone wisely because I know that the intonation delivers a message effectively. I also restrain from communicating an unpleasant message when I determine that the recipient may misinterpret my intentions.
Area to Strengthen my Communication
I need to strengthen my capacity to evaluate the recipient’s ability to listen and act on negative information. Sometimes I will need to deliver messages that may hurt one or more staff in my team, and having a balance between passing the message and maintaining a motivated team important in a healthcare facility. For instance, if I have a negative message, I will communicate it to the staff after he/she completes the shift. That gives the staff time to reflect on the message on their way home and before the next shift, which is effective because it does not compromise the quality of services the client offers to the patients.
The Barrier to Communication style, which I Observed
I noted that a direct communication style might hurt other people, especially if I say something that affects them in front of colleagues. As a leader, I believe in protecting the integrity of every team member to maximize their daily utilization rates when offering healthcare services to patients.
Performance Improvement and Quality Improvement
I would embrace the balanced scorecard strategic approach to ensure that the facility offers quality services to clients. This management approach helps balance achieving a facility’s financial performance targets and offering high-quality services to the client without compromising the employees’ welfare. Staff will undergo regular training to equip them with the relevant skills required to provide care services to clients.
Application of the Principle for Continuous Quality Improvement
One of the principles of continuous quality improvement is that “change should be continuous and incremental.” I will use this principle to reduce the resistance of my team members to change. If I need a particular department, I will discuss it with the head of the department first and develop a plan. Once the plan is in place, it will be implemented on a piecemeal basis within two years. That will help advance progress toward realizing my ultimate goal of offering high-quality services to our clients.
Evidence-based Practice and Improvement
The evidence-based practice provides a guideline for administrating care to patients. It is related to achieving desirable performance outcomes and quality improvement in that it provides a roadmap that nurses and doctors should follow when offering their services to clients. A nurse should avoid attempting a procedure that research findings on a particular disease cannot support (Dagne & Beshah, 2021). Patients’ preferences and values should not be violated when administering care, and the clinician should consider their experience and judgment (Dagne & Beshah, 2021). A medical facility that follows evidence-based criteria reduces the risk of handling a medical condition they cannot understand, which can harm a patient. This approach helps increase the chances of an organization administering quality care to patients, promoting its reputation as a healthcare facility.
Supervisory Style
The delegative leadership style is adopted in my organization. The head of departments is in charge of running the affairs of those departments. They assign responsibilities to their team members, who report back to them. The departmental heads report to the CEO. This supervisory method is successful as accountability and responsibilities are the departmental leaders. The delegation of roles does not prevent them from overseeing how their team members execute their work.
Autocratic leadership cannot apply effectively in a medical facility. Nurses are encouraged to work as a team, and departmental success is preferred to individual success. Autocracy cannot succeed as the composition of a team are people with unique expertise, and the team leader’s role is to coordinate the team’s activities.
References
Dagne, A., & Beshah, M. H. (2021). Implementation of evidence-based practice: The experience of nurses and midwives. Plos One, 16(8), e0256600.
Fulford, M., & Coleman, R. (2021). Maximizing the value of values-based leadership (VBL): a Reconceptualization for leaders and organizations. The Journal of Applied Leadership and Management, 9, 61-72.
